An inmate takeover of a North Carolina jail was resolved Monday after the negotiated release of two guards who were taken hostage and the transfer of all its inmates, authorities said.
The takeover at the Bertie-Martin Regional Detention Center in Eastern North Carolina started about 5 a.m. and ended about 2 p.m., with some inmates and staff members treated for unspecified injuries, according to state and local authorities.
“I am relieved to report that the situation concluded safely around 2 o’clock p.m. today with minimal injuries,” Bertie County Sheriff Tyrone M. Ruffin said at a news conference Monday afternoon.
One of three guards at the 88-inmate facility was able to escape after the takeover began, while two others were taken hostage, the State Bureau of Investigation said in a statement.
“The inmates inside the detention center assaulted on-duty guards and gained control of portions of the building,” it said.
Between 9:30 a.m. and 10 a.m., negotiators secured the release of the guards and two groups of inmates, one including 18 people and the other described by the bureau as a “large group.”
Shortly before 11 a.m., the bureau announced that the siege had ended with the help of the FBI and that all inmates and staff members were “safe and accounted for.”
Ruffin said guards who may have been injured were “OK.”
The facility, which Ruffin described as a regional jail run by an independent agency, has been essentially closed as damage is assessed, the State Bureau of Investigation said.
“We had to send SWAT teams inside of the facility, so there is damage,” Ruffin said.
Inmates, including those Ruffin described as “lower-level offenders” and some charged with murder, have been transferred to other facilities, he said.
It was not clear how many of the 88 inmates participated in the takeover, Ruffin said. That is the subject of an investigation by the FBI and the State Bureau of Investigation, he said.
He said the investigation will look into what might have incited the siege, including the environment inside the jail.
“There’s a lot of questions about conditions of the jail, a lot of questions about staffing of the jail, and those are things that I do not have because I’m not over the jail,” Ruffin said. “But as the investigation goes on, we will unfold those things.”
The jail’s administrator did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday night.
